


The Precursor

by cp035



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-15 00:07:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2208195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cp035/pseuds/cp035
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it's like the golden snitch- right? it's a whole new relationship, opening at the close; and Charlie's not quite sure how that's gonna play out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreenFish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenFish/gifts), [footnoterphone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/footnoterphone/gifts).



> So Nora and Penny wrote this fic where Meryl and Charlie bone in Japan; and this is kind of an extension of that universe, though it's not really related to it...I mean, I just think it could be, so I tagged them!

When Charlie and Meryl start dating ( _finally,_ says the rest of the world- or at least; their Moms) they're determined to make it work, the proper way. Mostly because they've spent the last five years really kind of apart, and this is Charlie's first foray into post-divorce dating. Just like the internet told him, it kind of sucks, though thankfully he isn't all that fat yet and Tanith doesn't really hate him.

She's more, what did she say?

Oh yeah; "I'm sick of your shit, Charlie."

This was all before the papers he had to sign; and the goddamn custody hearing where Charlie told the entire courtroom, very loudly that "He's two years old and he's never gonna know what it's like to have a good childhood because you're such a bitch."

When his older brother Jason came to pick him up and reassured the bailiff that he was only having an emotional moment and not actually in contempt; nor would he ever dream of actually hurting Tanith; he said it was fine; and he wasn't damaged for having a stepfather at all. "In fact, your dad is actually really cool.", Jason had said, and Charlie wailed, _"I don't want him to have a stepdad!"_

Three months afterwards; even though he knows he's over-compensating and becoming that dad because he buys his kid all this ridiculous crap and takes him on overpriced holidays, he can't really bring himself to care.

His mother raises her eyebrow when he leaves his credit card statement on the kitchen table. Of course he moved back home; where else was he supposed to go? Charlie White was not the kind of guy who kicked his ex-wife out of his now ex-house. The kid's room was there. He deserved his room.

"Charlie, are you sure you're doing okay?", she asks, kneading his shoulder.

"I just got a fucking divorce, Mom. What did _you_ feel like?"

So that had been uncalled for.

He had done a lot of stuff that was really kind of uncalled for.

It probably did not go to evidence of his wonderful character when he kicked in the fender on Tanith's Range Rover waiting to pick up his kid; though it also did not go to evidence of her wonderful character when she shouted at him that he was an _immature little boy_ and her most embarrassing mistake- in front of said child.

He paid for the repairs, and she had left the front door open to let him inside; and wrapped her arms around him, saying that  it was "-just fine. It's a _transition_ , Charlie. I'm sorry."

All this proved was that they sucked just as much at being divorced as they had at being married.

"Maybe we should have just been one of those people who dated forever and never did anything.", he suggested.

"Maybe. But we wouldn't have Landon. We both wanted to wait for that.", she told him with a tiny shrug.

"But maybe eventually we couldn't wait anymore and we would have, anyway."

"That's a lot of maybes."

Charlie tries to swallow the knot in his throat because the last thing he wanted was to start crying on his ex-doorstep, in front of his ex-wife, waiting for his still-child to put on shoes, so he just says "Well. Yeah. I know. _Maybe_ was always kind of our thing."

It's so uncalled for Tanith doesn't even care that Landon is wearing two different shoes and doesn't have his jacket when she slams the door as hard as she can in his face.

Landon jumps up and down on the Welcome mat which just for the record- they bought together- and happily squeals with delight.

" _Earthquake,_ daddy! Let's play earthquake! _Stand in the door_!"

 

* * *

 

They don't start off with a bang. Actually, they start with a conversation, a lot of conversations they should have had a long time ago.

Beginning with Charlie, angry and dejected and trying his best to keep the spirits up while he wrestles Landon into his lap at the Davis family's Christmas dinner.

"So you're back.", he says into his plate of mashed potatoes, refusing to meet Meryl's eye. She is seated across the table from where he is, picking at greens and constantly looking down into her lap, where Charlie knows she must be texting back and forth with that stupid Italian douchebag Gianno. Suddenly, Gianno is so much more important than her own family, like Clayton; who still looks at her expectantly for approval, like the little brother he'll always be while his wife rocks their new baby to sleep before she excuses herself to put him down for the night.

Paul and Cheryl and his parents are laughing and tossing back champagne like there's no tomorrow.

Except there it, and tomorrow; this _entire_ affair will be repeated again when the Whites have Christmas brunch, and the Davises will have to be crammed in the parlor of their house, and Charlie and Meryl will stare awkwardly at one another and pretend they are still friends even though one is practically celibate and the other has no time to think about sex because he has a three-year-old.

"Yup, I am.", she says, equally disinterested in making eye contact.

"I heard a lot about everyone…did I miss anything big while I was away?" Meryl is just as polite as ever and God, Charlie wishes, if his parents weren't also in attendance, he could just walk out with his son and go sledding or something else that sad single dads do on Christmas Eve. He has Landon for Christmas, then Tanith will take him over New Year's.

Meryl has not been in Michigan for years now, and Charlie's son is missing her birthday. Oh, but according to Meryl, Tanith is probably just _regrettably away on business_ or something like that. Some stupid invention she's probably gone into this dinner imagining because obviously, she doesn't want to face the facts.

Meryl Davis is a homewrecker, and Charlie White just can't take it anymore.

"Yeah. Just my thirtieth birthday. I got your card, though! Landon really liked that shirt. I heard yours was great. I can't _believe_ Gianno's family has a whole villa by the ocean.", he bitterly squeezes out, ignoring Clayton, furiously shaking his head. In spite of himself, Charlie laughs, like this is a good, fun conversation and he has been so eager to talk to Meryl his friend, again.

"His name is _Gian_. Just Gian, actually."

"Well that's good. Are you and Gian planning on having children at all? Or is being a couple oceans away getting in the way of that? That's a shame."

It's Christmas Eve, and 13 years of prep school etiquette training has gone out the window into the Michigan snowstorm outside. The bible, the president, and the state of one's marriage or lack thereof have always been inappropriate topics for dinner conversation, not that Charlie frankly _gives a fuck_ anymore.

"Charlie!", his mother admonishes, and Clayton lowers his eyes to his lap, where Charlie can only guess that he is probably holding his wife's hand, twirling their rings like he and Tanith used to when he still believed that maybe they could beat the odds and work out just fine.

"Oh, no, Jacqui- he's right. It is hard to keep up a relationship when I'm here, and he's…not. It is a shame, you know. We should all be so lucky to have…-", her voice trails off and Meryl stands, abruptly, her chair scraping against the Davises' brand new tile.

" _Excuse me_."

A proper lady never needs more than to excuse herself; and Meryl regards the entire table with the most wild-eyed look of terror Charlie ever remembers seeing on her face, before turning on her heel and racing up the steps to either the guest bedroom, or the one she grew up in. He hears a door slam more to the left than the right above him, and remembers. That's her room.

Charlie, stone-faced, doesn't even question himself as he follows suit.

"Hey- Daddy; say excuse me!", Landon screams from his chair. For the first time in three-and-a-half years, Charlie ignores him.

"Hey!" Seeing as manners have clearly gone by the wayside, he bursts through Meryl's door; and chuckles bitterly when she huffs and turns away so she can cross her arms across her chest and look pissed and angry in the general direction of her window.

"Sorry- Meryl, I'm sorry. That was…really uncalled for."

"Yeah. It really was.", she echoes. " _You're a jerk._ "

"Yeah, I know. Trust me, I know. And y'know; if there's anyone who shouldn't be judging other people, it's probably me."

"You shouldn't."

He just shakes his head, and ambles over to her bed. Maybe she doesn't remember, but here was their first kiss. But; given the circumstances now, it's probably a good thing that she doesn't.

"So…things are going good for you, I guess, right? I heard you uh- I heard you were looking at a job from the consulate from your Mom."

"Did you hear from her that I turned it down?"

"Why?" Charlie has resigned himself to committing blunder after blunder tonight, but maybe it's for the best, he says to himself.

If he does this all the way through Christmas and get embarrassingly drunk on New Year's, maybe by the time the next court date rolls around, he'll actually have the guts to tell the judge that the split custody agreement he drew up is total bullshit- because right now it's more like 75/25; and Tanith's running with it because she doesn't count the days Landon is out of the country with her. Instead of, you know, probably scream and get kicked out of court again.

"I don't know, being a whole ocean away probably fucks up working at a foreign consulate. Something like that."

Charlie jerks up in her bed and snaps his head in her direction. "You're coming b- _What?"_

He lets the outburst linger in the air and then- "What happened to you?"

"I think I lived. And God, I found out I _hate_ life.", Meryl mutters, kicking at a stack of books on her floor from years ago, which her parents have left untouched, she thinks; maybe because they like thinking their daughter is still _perfect_ ; maybe just away on an extended vacation while in reality, she's called them in tears more times than she'll ever admit.

"No, you don't. You don't _ha_ \- Meryl, are you okay?"

Charlie's heart is speeding up, and the protective urge he has always felt for her, even though she's older, even though she has spent the past five years telling him she doesn't need him in every way she can- trips a wire in his brain that sends him readying for the worst. " _It's Christmas_.", he adds as an immediately regrettable afterthought.

"Yeah, and Gian is partying it up at the villa, while I'm embarrassing my family.", Meryl murmurs to herself.

They are sitting on her bed, where they had their first kiss, watching the snow fall through her window, when Charlie finds out that her supposedly perfect Italian boyfriend is real prick who would rather lose the privilege of knowing her than live with the fact she'll never have his children. 

They are lying, underneath her pink chevron bedsheets that Cheryl has never changed out in the past decade, when Meryl finds out that his divorce from Tanith is much less amicable than she always imagined Charlie White's divorce would be.

Downstairs, they can hear Landon; screaming Jungle Bells at the top of his lungs, and when Meryl hears that first chorus, she imagines tiny hands coloring the Christmas card that will hang on her fridge, and sees herself driving to the mall at the end of November, snapping pictures of a child whose face swims in her mind's eye, on Santa's lap asking for a unicorn, and she tastes hot chocolate and cinnamon and gingerbread. Landon is clanging on his plate with his fork, still singing; and Charlie imagines opening presents by a fireplace, and putting up heirloom ornaments on a tree they find at the very edge of a freezing parking lot, and sees himself packing snow in gloved hands, launching them lightly at Tanith while she laughs and pushes Landon on his sled, and feels the leather on the tongue of his very first pair of skates.

_It's Christmas._

"God. We really fucked up, didn't we?", Meryl sighs beside him.

Charlie is trying to smile when he turns to face her, trying to be positive and happy like he always was when they were together last. He wants to tell her "No, not yet.", and laugh.

But he can't really laugh right now, and says "Maybe not.", instead. 

He doesn't want to lie to her, and maybe that's enough. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two; for those of you who requested more of this "world". ")

They do a lot of stupid couple things, like sit together at the top of the Ferris wheel and make out, because they no longer have to worry too much about what everyone else will think or say. It's been a very long time since February, 2014, thank God.

 

Even in the same 30-mile radius their entire lives (minus Meryl's four-and-a-half-year leave of absence) have revolved around, the tides have turned and everything, from their favorite coffeeshop to the backstreets of their respective suburbs, recognize them as new people.

 

Charlie takes them to Chuck E. Cheese's, pun unintentional, for Landon's fourth birthday; which lo and behold, falls on a Sunday when he has his son. Tanith took him with her on vacation to Hawaii; so he's still slightly sunburnt and a graying bandage is wrapped around his ankle, which according to Tanith: "-He just twisted it a little learning to boogie board. He didn't even cry that much." 

 

"Hey, Jacqui!", she had called, waving past Charlie to his mother.

 

The entire situation makes him want to punch the entire universe in the face. But today, here they were.

 

Chuck E. Cheese's.

 

Oahu. 

 

 _Challenge accepted,_ Charlie can't help but think, as he scrolls through his phone to see if he can get a flight to Disneyland Tokyo before Tanith comes back from her gig at Nationals on Thursday. If he doesn't count the days he's out of the country with Landon; maybe Tanith will learn her lesson. Oh, and Landon will have a _proper_ birthday party, of course.

 

That's what's important.

 

"You've got a gorgeous family, and that boy, takes after you, hm?", their server laughs, and Charlie grits his teeth.

 

"Better hope you have a little sister like your pretty Mom, right, sweetheart?", she says to Landon, who is so happy with his crayons and his hockey player placemat that he only makes a noise of contentment in return.

 

Meryl's eyes are suddenly trained to the floor, and Charlie can feel the swell of tension in their tiny corner booth. First, he feels terrible for Meryl, and then mortified when Landon says nothing, not denying that Meryl is his mother.

 

The internet; and the pamphlets recommended to him by his mother, and the unsolicited advice he's received from Tanith's mother of _all_ people, all tell him this is a very, very, bad sign.

 

* * *

 

This is, of course, months after the White's Christmas brunch, after their first big talk together.

 

Meryl wakes herself up on Christmas morning; slowly, painfully, regretfully- once she realizes she is entangled in Charlie in her teenage bedroom, still fully clothed in  her dinner dress. She would savor the moment; if she enjoyed the bitter taste such a _pathetic_ scene left in her mouth.

 

Beside her, Charlie- his favorite jacket wrinkled underneath his sleeping form, stirs and mutters something about how she needs to check on Landon, because it's Christmas, and _"-if you don't get 'im now…he'll get excited like last year…and the stairs you know…stitches…I'm- just give me five seconds, m'kay?"_

 

His face is buried in her pillow, and Meryl desperately wishes Landon's name would make her feel the way the woman Charlie must be dreaming of does. She wishes thinking of him; falling down the stairs in Christmas morning excitement, would spur her out of staring at the neon stars on her ceiling, and the high school pennant above her desk.

 

Instead, she shifts only slightly as Charlie rolls over.

 

She tries to remember what Charlie and Tanith's house would have looked like in the winter, and realizes with a start that she has little recollection of the place. By the first Christmas Charlie and Tanith had been together, she had already left.

 

Meryl is twirling her hair around her fingers; when she indulges herself in a fantasy of what Tanith; alone on Christmas morning without her husband and child, must be doing, and for several precious moments, Meryl drifts in the snowy sunlight coming in from her window and Charlie's familiar scent.

 

Landon makes Meryl so angry she feels like climbing out the window and jumping off the roof. That's why she feels hollowed to the centre when she hears his name, because like all the things which populate the life she has always imagined, Tanith has made them hers.

 

A son, a child, who is hers in blood and name and there when she wants him and gone when she needs him to be.

 

 _"Imagine that."_ , Meryl whispers to herself. Charlie, still asleep, has no answer.

 

By now, it must be evening in Italy, where Gian is feeding lies to his extended family about where Meryl is; because they had a fight and for the first time in recent memory, she's finished taking the high road. Getting a flight wasn't as difficult as she had thought, but following through on her promise to walk out of that asshole's life forever?

 

Well, for starters, she had lied to Charlie about turning down the job; the letter for which was still buried in the bottom of her briefcase, underneath a carton of Junior Mints she had half-devoured at the airport, waiting for Clayton to begrudgingly pick her up. 

 

He had asked her: "Meryl, are you sure about coming back? Because Alexa and I fight all the time but I would never...I mean, we don't run away." 

 

And her heart had hammered through her chest when she told him "I'm not running anywhere, Clay. I'm too tired. Take me home so I can sleep."

 

So, there was that. And then; there was this. Had her parents and Jacqui and Big Charlie just left them up here like this? Like they were these two co-dependent middle-aged losers?

 

Okay- so they sort of were, but still.

 

This was _Lifetime movie pitiful._

 

* * *

 

 

"So…-", Clayton breathed out, as he shook a bottle of baby formula in his hand. "-are we just gonna pretend that last night didn't happen?"

 

He glanced up at his parents, drinking apple cider and carefully cutting their pancakes in happily married unison at the table, and gritted his teeth. "Because…Charlie's _still_ up there, doing…whatever he and Meryl-"

 

_"Clayton!"_

 

He placed the bottle back on the counter and groaned internally. If there was anything Midwestern parents, Jacqui and Big Charlie and Charlie and Tanith and he and Alexa- admittedly- were actually good at; it was this stupid game of chase and release. _Chase_ your problems until you've got them there in your hand, and then _let them go_ before you can crush the fuckers like you ought to.

 

Jesus Christ. He and his wife fight over their six-month old four days out of seven. His sister; if he remembers correctly, is probably cheating on her fiance with a divorced man upstairs while his three-year-old is sleeping in the guest room in Clayton's Transformers pyjamas from the early 1990's. His Mom is kind of a hoarder, and that's the least of their problems.

 

It's _appalling_ , the point the Davises have reached, and God; Clayton hates coming home.

 

"What? What do you think they're doing? Talking? With their mouths? Are you blind? Or still in denial?", he shouted; not quite minding the look on his father's face as his chair scrapes back, like Meryl's, and Paul Davis; the only Davis to break the six-foot line, still towers over his only son.

 

"You do not speak to your mother like that. I don't frankly care that you're on your own now, you will apologize. Man up." His voice is low and Clayton remembers a time when this very conversation would have sent him- tail between his legs- running for his bedroom to cry before offering that tearful apology.

 

He swears he'll never do the same with his children.

 

"Fine. Sorry, Mom. Sorry, Dad. Sorry Meryl's life is the one that's fucked up and mine is fine, but you don't give a fuck since you only love _her,_ anyway. Sorry about that."

 

Now's the time Clayton stalks up the stairs, bottle in hand; and on the way to his bedroom, where his family is staying, kicks at the door of Meryl's bedroom, all reflex and impulse.

 

It swings open easily against his foot, to reveal Meryl and Charlie-

 

 _Fully clothed._ He is asleep; and she is crying- silent and blank-faced as tears roll down her cheeks.

 

Clayton is mortified, and freezes in fear when she springs out of bed and nearly jumps into his arms. At first, he's unsure, then; reflex takes over again and he automatically wraps himself around her, surprised by how small she really is. Meryl has towered and shadowed over so much of his life- and he would be an even worse person not to admit his heart swells at their reversal.

 

She breaks away, and wipes furiously at her eyes. "I'm so- I don't know why I'm so emotional. I'm sorry.", she whispers, and Clayton gulps, and nods.

 

Meryl blinks and takes a few shaky breaths, and sighs. "Landon's in the guest room, right?"

 

"Yeah. I think…yeah."

 

"Put him- put him on the futon in your room. Say that he slept with you guys-", she pauses, as if to consider her head game, and put the pieces into the proper place. Clayton wonders if she would take it as a compliment; that she looks like their Mom did in old pictures.

 

"Charlie's asleep. He doesn't know and he shouldn't- Just let him think I slept in the guest room, okay? We talked, and I left. We can't.", Meryl said, haltingly, her eyes sliding shut as if to block out the reality of the night before. "I can't hurt him like that on _Christmas._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clayton is just so woefully underused in fic...


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was told by a reader that a bunch of you are wondering if I have tumblr/if I can answer your questions about this story. I do have a Tumblr, but I think it would be best for you to leave your comments here. I'll leave longwinded responses, so don't feel too bad. If you'd like to follow me/talk to me on Tumblr, my url is lakeviewstarlet and you can send me messages/fanmails/submits BUT I won't answer any fic questions that are anon; fair? There y'all are now; enjoy! :)

They break the news to their parents with little fanfare and try to ignore those knowing looks between them. It’s the first weekend that the Davises’ lakehouse is open; and so Charlie plans a family picnic, minus the family for the most part- because Tanith has Landon, and Clayton, believe it or not, has an actual life (so he _says_ ), so it’s him, Meryl, his parents, and her parents.

 

Cheryl and Paul Davis, by the way, are all terse lines and tense conversation now. Charlie waits for Paul to give him a hug, or for Cheryl to offer him some sweet tea, or for the both of them to show any regard for his existence, and the very large role he has played in their daughter’s life thus far, and plans to play again. Instead, they are silent in words and actions, and when he moves to help them pull a cooler from the back of their car, Paul gives him the steeliest look imaginable and waves him away.

 

"It’s very nice of you to let us share the property.", Charlie forces himself to say with a small grin. He never thought the day would come that the Davises and the Whites are only civil, and nothing else.

 

" _You’re welcome._ ", is all he gets, so he sets off toward the house, trying his hardest to ignore Meryl, bundled up in a sweater and thick, winter, leggings in the backseat although it feels too warm for the early spring. Then, he changes his mind, and wants to go to her, but Meryl shakes her head just ever so slightly.

 

He wants her to know that " _sometimes life sucks, and things happen to the wrong people, and it’s nobody’s fault but maybe God’s and you have to make the best of it._ "That’s what Charlie told Tanith’s voicemail the night before; because he’s in deep with Meryl now, and the stuff he and Tanith do, the kisses at her doorstep when he drops off his son, the touches that linger too long when they get too close as he shuts the door of his car and discusses logistics with her while Landon watches cartoons on the iPad, has got to stop.

 

The stuff he does with Meryl; the preschool parent’s orientation and the dinners and the carpools with Landon’s new friends; the movie nights and the times he has taken her to the orchestra and made out with her in their expensive box seats, have to stop, too. Charlie doesn’t just want to be trailing kisses down her stomach with his tongue on his parents’ living room couch after another Lord of the Rings marathon.

 

He wants to _be with her_. Not just be with her _literally_.

 

Tanith texted him back: “ _I’m so happy you’re dating someone else! It really is time to move on! Good luck to me, right? LOL!_ ”

 

Charlie sees this is the universe’s way of showing its blessing of Charlie and Meryl as a couple. Of course, Tanith doesn’t know he’s with Meryl. She’d flip shit if she did.

 

Actually, she flipped when she found out Meryl was back, not just for the holidays.

 

 _Happy shit_ , which made Charlie’s stomach turn while her eyes glistened with barely contained glee for a spare few seconds, while she turned the minivan around and announced to Landon that she would stay, after all, for a whole week in which they could do things together as a family. They kissed and touched a lot during that week, but Charlie tells himself at least; that this was before he and Meryl began dating. Everything before this weekend, technically; is.

 

But, he appreciates the irony, too- Meryl was the traveller, who had come back home, and Tanith was the one who was always itching for a safe place; while she was in a different country every other week.

 

They’re sitting around a card table on the deck, choking down wine that is too expensive to waste nearly glowering at one another; when Charlie decides to break the uncomfortable pattern of small talk and tell them: “We just wanted you to know, Meryl and I are dating. We’ve been…exploring our options for a while because we didn’t want to rush, but I just want us all to be honest with one another, and you know- Mom and Dad; meet my girlfriend.”

 

A moment’s pause. Charlie can feel Meryl’s breath in his own lungs.

 

His mother says: “I won’t say I’m surprised, but I’m happy the two of you made this choice together, for yourselves.”

 

His father nods, and pours more wine into his goblet, that universal signal that it’s going to be a long night.

 

He’s right, too- because the Davises remain civil, Meryl smiles, and the two of them go inside to watch TV and lie in her cabin bedroom, bubbly with alcohol and a foreign kind of happiness, tangling into one another. They are fast asleep, breathless with kisses; before either pair of their parents comes inside.

 

It’s been _exhausting_. But, Charlie thinks optimistically, it might be good. It could be good after all of this is out of the way.

 

But half past midnight; according to Charlie’s watch- he wakes up warm and feeling very content, with Meryl’s hair splayed across his chest and her features softened by sleep and moonlight. They had left their window open to a cool breeze outside, and as he slowly moves to close it, voices from the patio drift inside.

 

"-know she’s making a mistake. She thinks because it’s Charlie; that he’s going to accept everything that’s happened to her like a prince. He’s a man; not this fantasy you know she has in her head."

 

That’s _Cheryl._

 

"Well, whose fault is it she thinks of him like that, anyway? You and Jacqui encouraged this bullshit from day one, and you know that. It’s your fault she doesn’t know what she’s doing.", scoffs _Paul_.

 

"You think I like where we are right now with her?"

 

 ”Just let it go, Cher. So they wanna pretend they’re twenty-one again and mess around? Fine. I mean, it’s Charlie. If anything, she’ll forget about him once she realizes she’s got to deal with Tanith again because of the kid. It can’t get worse than her mess with Gian.”

 

Charlie glances back at his girlfriend in bed, and cannot fathom these people raised her.

 

He doesn’t even want to think about that weird alternate universe of the past; where they raised him, too, but he does without wanting to and spends the rest of that long night awake, holding her as she sleeps.

 

* * *

 

 

On Christmas morning, though- Charlie has never thought of lakehouse picnics gone wrong, or his girlfriend’s parents thinking he’s her pity fuck; because he can hear Landon’s voice, clear as sleigh bells, shouting at him to wake up because he’s going to be “ _late for Santa!_ ”

 

He wishes he could bottle up that sound and wear it around his neck. Landon bounds into Meryl’s room and jumps up into the bed, which Charlie realizes with a start is empty. Frantically, his hands run down his body, reassuring himself that nothing happened while his son was in the house. When he reaches his pocket square, still in place if just a bit more wrinkled, he sighs with relief.

 

"Morning, buddy!", he says, as brightly as you possibly can after waking up, cramped and sore in a teenage girl’s bedroom; aged thirty-two. Thankfully, Landon has always been easy. He never cried much or fussed as a baby; and now, if he has tantrums, they're five minutes long. He says please, thank you, sir, and ma'am, and opens the door for other people when he or Tanith takes him out. Landon is _wonderful_. He's so, _so,_ good. And Charlie thinks if he could wake up like this every morning, with this beautiful little boy pulling at his hand because he's still so excited about the world; then he wouldn't mind what else could go wrong.  

 

"Daddy! Come _ooooooooooooooooooon_." He's bouncing on the bed and Charlie pulls his phone, miraculously intact from his pocket to snap a picture. He texts it to Tanith one-handed, because Landon has become preoccupied with his cufflinks: "Merry xmas!! Best gift we could have gotten! -", Charlie's hand hovers over L, to say " _Love you!_ ", like he reflexively does in all his texts, and sighs, frustrated; as he scrolls through the Emoji windows to find a goofy smiley face instead.

 

He's divorced now. The Christmas Elf hat-wearing happy face will have to do. 

 

Tanith's reply is immediate. " _Aww! love you, too; have fun and stay safe!_ " 

 

_Dammit._

 

Landon's brunch clothes are in his car, and while Charlie isn't stupid and appreciates that the Davises have had the common courtesy to lend his son pyjamas he remembers wanting when he could have been friends with Landon, he's not about to drop in on their Christmas morning breakfast, having technically slept over with their daughter, who is technically in a relationship. Okay, so maybe she went to a different room once he fell asleep (He had to have been first. Otherwise, Meryl would still be beside him.), but it still looked bad. He looks out of Meryl's window and crumples in relief when he sees his parents' car has vanished from the driveway. They're going to have a stupidly awkward talk about this when he doesn't have his kid around anymore, but it doesn't matter. He'll have to cross the bridge and all that stuff. 

 

For now, he perches Landon on his hip and makes his way across the hall as quietly as he possibly can. Clayton's wife is downstairs already, because he can hear a girl who isn't Meryl down there. 

 

" _Clay!_ ", he hisses, thankful the door is open just one tiny crack and he doesn't have to knock and tell the whole house he's awake. 

 

There's a shuffle, and then: "What?" 

 

"Uh, Landon's stuff is in my car- and my keys, _right here_ ; could you maybe go get them? It's the Spiderman backpack in the trunk. I just can't...I mean, your Mom and Dad are down there and I don't want to, um...intrude.", he sputters. It's a little surprising, and mostly humiliating, because it's Clayton, who's always been his dorky little brother.

 

Charlie should be less utterly terrified of standing before a man who did not just receive a text saying "love you" from his ex-wife. He shouldn't be so jealous that Clayton's done well, and _yet_. 

 

Clayton visibly rolls his eyes skyward. "Yeah. I don't really like to intrude either. That's why I'm usually in Vermont over the holidays instead of here.", he mutters, as he swipes the keys from Charlie, who is left in the hallway, wondering just _what the fuck_ else he's missing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much filler. Such rushed. :P


	4. Chapter 4

Meryl can hear Charlie outside her door, telling Clayton to get Landon's things in the car, when she finally pulls herself out of bed. Starting at the heavy walls in the guest bedroom, where her parents have put all the excess pictures and ribbons from she and Charlie's childhood skating career; is just twisting the knife, and on Christmas, considering she has been avoiding Gian's calls and texts like a disease and begging her Italian friends to cut him off- she should have better things to do than consider whether or not she's ever going to make them (but _especially_ her mother) proud of her ever again.

 

Downstairs, her parents are laughing about something (probably) stupid, and the coffeemaker churns while Alexa, Clayton's wife is talking about her job. Because she actually has one, and unlike Meryl, has n reason to lie about anything. Maybe she can be the one who makes them happy. That wouldn't be so bad.

 

She pulls her phone from her purse on the bedside table, and tries her hardest to ignore eleven-year-old Charlie White's disbelieving glance from the top of the Juvenile Ice Dance podium, 1999. There are seventeen missed texts, twelve missed calls. Of these, only two of each are from people she actually gives a fuck about.                              

_"Tried calling ur house & Gian said you were away. On xmas eve? LOL, Drink up, mer! Call me tomorrow haha been a long time since we caught up!",_ Jeremy Abbott has texted her underneath a stupid e-card. She deletes Jeremy's message, and the two from her cousins in Canada, who have just added her name from a group text, anyway. There's another group text from Erin Andrews of Dancing with the Stars, which she saves, because she is actually _friends_ with Erin, who believes the best of her thanks to the internet.

 

Then, she takes a deep breath, presses the phone to her ear; and taps the voicemail icon at the bottom of the screen. Immediately, it's the 12 Days of Christmas. Not the song, but the _endless_ litany. Meryl smooths down the skirt of her dress and bunches up the hem in her fist. She knows what's coming, and she won't let it get to her. Not now, when she's fairly certain she's walking barefoot on rock bottom already, and all he'll do is pull her down to the core of the earth.

 

It's Gian, predictably intoxicated and his voice slurred by alcohol and the international phone lines, practically screaming over the family chatter in the background. If she listens closely enough, she can head the ocean waves crash against the rocks on the beach, like the big fat tears that she frantically wipes as he shouts about how _stupid_ he is for staying with her, what a piece of shit he must be for _wasting his time_ with a _worthless bitch_ like her. That's messages 16 down to 13, but in message 11, he surprises her.

 

" _I love you._ That's what you said.", Gian tells her, his voice even, if a bit mechanical. She is nodding in bed, instinctively; still trying to convince herself how wrong it is that when he calls himself a piece of shit for staying, all she wants to do is call back and tell him _he_ isn't, and _she's_ the problem. Problems can be solved, and they can still do that together. It's mind over matter; but what's in her mind doesn't matter, according to message 12.

 

There's a long pause and a loud crackle. _"You think that it matters if you love me?"_

 

Another loud pop. Meryl tells herself it's static, and that he's only like this because he's drunk, which is because she left him over Christmas to wallow in her own self-pity.

 

She'll never know the line crackles because he's laughing, because he thinks love is stupid and she is stupid and he's a massive, entitled asshole. It's _mind over matter_ , after all, and her phone's not on a very good network, anyway.

 

Clayton is coming up the stairs with Landon's things, when she sticks her arm out the door and pokes him square in he middle of the back. He whirls around and huffs out a deep breath, as if it's too early to be dealing with her and Charlie in his house. In hindsight, it probably is. Because Meryl knows if it were Clayton where she is, she would be an only child to everyone but her parents. She's a bad person, and maybe Gian sees that.

 

"What do you want?", he says, exasperated, a Spiderman backpack slung over his shoulder.

 

"My stuff...uh, my other clothes are in my car. Charlie's in my room and uh...I-"

 

 _"Keys.",_ Clayton mutters, holding out his hand.

 

 _"And next year, what about we just go to Hawaii or something? Somewhere I can jump off a cliff.",_ she hears him murmur under his breath.

 

* * *

 

Charlie leaves for his parents' home before the Davises; having forced Landon into a scratchy, expensive boys' suit Tanith bought him especially for this occasion. It doesn't match Charlie's own sports jacket at all, and Landon's jacket is made of thick, itchy, wool- so he scratches at his arms and whimpers until Charlie finds his long-sleeved button-up crumpled into the bottom of the backpack. It's too wrinkled up to salvage, but under the matching vest and jacket, and the bright yellow tie Charlie bought especially for this occasion; because he wasn't about to let Tanith have the last word- he looks quite handsome, though Charlie is biased.

 

His hair takes longer, and Charlie sits through seven minutes of unholy screaming before he can rake his son's hair into something somewhat presentable in the bathroom mirror, after which he runs off in the direction of the stairs; and Charlie chases after him, grinning sheepishly as Paul and Cheryl climb up the steps. He would be embarrassed, but Jesus Christ, he's with his son. It's like shooting up on pure sunshine.

 

"We gotta go, Daddy, we're gonna be late!", he squeals, and he's been saying the same thing all morning, but Charlie doesn't really care.

 

"I know. Just one more thing." Charlie runs back upstairs, and checks back in Meryl's bedroom, and Clayton's. He wants to offer her a ride; or maybe, just say something, anything about last night- before he leaves. But as he hits the upstairs landing, Clayton is posted outside the guest room, his arms crossed as his toes trace patterns in the carpet.

 

"Hey, she awake yet?", Charlie asks, though he knows Clayton wouldn't be doing this is she were still asleep. This is _their_ house after all; interruptions notwithstanding.

 

"Uh...yeah. Changing into...y'know how girls are.", he says sheepishly. No, Charlie thinks, he really doesn't. Otherwise, he would be at his house, with his wife, not sleeping in Meryl's house and acting in a way which reflects badly on his mother.

 

"Oh. Well...tell her Merry Christmas, and I'll see you guys later, right?"

 

"Yeah."

 

Charlie ignores Clayton when he adds " _unfortunately_ ", under his breath.

 

He should just quit it, you know; being so damn _passive-aggressive_ all the time. Charlie knows it better than he does his own son- that never ends well.

 

* * *

 

When Tanith finally does find out about Charlie and Meryl; she says just three words: "I'm not surprised."

 

Charlie has three words for her, too. "You're a bitch."

 

At first, they fight. Landon has a sleepover with his best friend and for the first time in what feels like years (though it has only been one and a half; really), Charlie can let himself go. Tanith, ever ready for a real fight; with no lawyers and none of his parents' interference, sinks her teeth in and rips into him.

 

She calls him a class-A loser who's dependent on his mother and screams that he has never done anything for Landon other than show him a "wonderful example of everything he's going to be ashamed of.", so he brings up Fedor, and Evan, and says she probably had a thing with Ben and calls their relationship the only thing he's ever been ashamed of.

 

Tanith laughs, and Charlie misses when her laughter was sweet. She tells him to go to hell and he starts laughing, too; because half of their wedding tableware is lying shattered at his feet and she doesn't see how ridiculous it all is.

 

Besides, he can throw things, too; and a box of Landon's crayons shatter against the back wall, and a clay octopus commemorating his second birthday breaks beside it while he calls her jealous and selfish.

He says she's irresponsible and a shitty mother who doesn't deserve their son.

 

"Oh, and you think Meryl does?"

 

Charlie is just about to speak; but something inexplicable happens- because the moment the question leaves her lips, all the fight seems to seep out of Tanith, and she leans, exhausted on the kitchen counter. She shuts her eyes and huffs out a breath and Charlie thinks he must have betrayed his country in a previous life to deserve his ex-wife having a heart attack or something while they fight and destroy every small projectile in the house.

 

"You think Meryl deserves him. You _really_ do.", she repeats in a weak chuckle, and suddenly, Charlie's concern drops.

 

" _So what_ if I do?"

 

Tanith is kicking aside broken glass and chunks of wax, clearing a path to the front door, her head hung low. Haplessly, he follows her until she's leaning against the door jamb, holding it open for him, one hand in her pocket.

 

"We don't need to fight.", she starts. "We don't need to be around each other if we don't want to be. But...Charlie, you're still Landon's dad. So, whatever you do, he's number one, okay? Fuck Meryl, love Meryl, _I don't care anymore_. But if she ever comes first, Charlie? Then she can be your number one, and I'll take care of him. _Alone_."

 

She shoves him outside and slams the door as hard as she can. They don't play earthquake because Landon isn't there; so Charlie shuffles to the end of her driveway and lets himself into his car, taking long, deep, breaths as he pulls out on to the street. This latest trend; people treating Meryl like she'll _infect_ him with something, is annoying, and exhausting, and makes him _so_ inexplicably angry.

 

She's _wonderful_. Landon likes her a lot. Her parents are pricks, and Tanith's just jealous. He'll go home to her that night, and shower her with kisses before they go to bed together and enjoy not having his son there; because they are adults who _chose_ this for themselves, not kids who are into each other because they're together all the time.

 

Someday, Charlie is painfully aware, his propensity to keep his feelings at bay is going to come back and tear his ass off, and it's going to fuck up his son because Landon's happy and he's an easy kid; but he's not deaf and blind. But you know, Charlie tells himself; _it's a mind over matter game_.

 

Soon, everything will be just fine. He just has to believe it; and everything will fall right into place.

 

It _has_ to.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is long; and there's a few little gaps here and there that I decided to leave to fill in during later chapters to cut the length. But, there's a funny little flashback in here and two scenes I've been looking forward to, so, it's kinda okay with me?

Charlie wants to make their first time _special._

 

It’s not technically their first, but it’s their first, you know? He takes her out for romantic, expensive, dinner, which Meryl says is completely unnecessary, and pays the bill behind her back because the last thing he wants is to fight her in the middle of the balcony over wine.

 

He tells her they got in for free because it’s Michigan, and it’s not like people have forgotten them  just yet.

 

She calls him a delinquent.

 

She’s so fucking amazing.

 

As they’re leaving, they take stupid pictures of themselves in front of the restaurant, which are going to become their phone backgrounds, because they’re that couple.

 

Meryl tells him she was never that couple when she was with Gian, and as stupid and juvenile as it is; she loves to take pictures.

 

"Just so I know...that all of this is really happening.", she says two weeks before; while she is perched on top of a large, flat, stone and taking pictures of the last thin sheets of sleet at the top of the lake, way over on the other side.

 

"Do you not like...what's happening?", he asks her, kneeling behind her stone in the cold, hard-pressed, dirt. Her parents (and his) are still inside, eating breakfast or just waking up; he has no idea. But the urge to put as much distance between himself and Cheryl and Paul; of last night's " _she's making a huge mistake thinking he really likes her_ " fame- is strong.

 

"No. I do. It's fine. I just...like to keep records, I guess. Jog my memory a little bit."

 

* * *

 

 

Cheryl Davis pinned his corsage on him at prom; when he and Evan Bates used the Davis house to get ready before they went to pick up their dates. Charlie's house was always more chaotic, with all his older siblings, and Evan was set on avoiding Emily Samuelson; his ice dancing partner, because he wasn't going with her.

 

"Dude. At least me and Meryl don't do this weird shit with each other.", Charlie remembered saying, laughing while Meryl rolled her eyes on the couch.

 

"Well. I have _better_ things to do than spend my one and only prom night with Charlie. Yuck.", she teased. Her prom wasn't until the week after. "Evan, you look _super hot_."

 

" _Super hot_.", Charlie echoed. Evan groaned.

 

"Prom is such an antiquated social ritual. I don't even know why we're going.", he sighed. "We'll have to leave early, anyway."

 

Clayton Davis, in his awkward, gangly, freshman year glory looked up from his Game Boy to tell them all "I can't wait until I get to go to prom. I'm gonna bring the hottest girl in the whole school."

 

"Yeah, your sister.", Evan let slip; and Meryl buried her head in her hands. The boys were ushered outside, all of them laughing. Meryl was waving from her front porch as they sped away in Evan's car.

 

"I can't _believe_ you think Meryl's hot.", Charlie giggled, rolling down his window once they were far from the Davises' earshot.

 

"I can't believe you don't. Like, I like Emily and all, but not...like that. We've got history and she's really sweet, but dude- if I didn't wanna go to the Olympics, I'd totally steal your girl and be completely cool with having her tango skirt my face, you know?"

 

"Jesus Christ. Don't talk about my partner like that. But like...its the same, you know? She's nice and we have a lot of history together. You wanna know who _is_ hot, though?"

 

"You better not say Halle Berry again. You have _no_ chance."

 

Charlie furiously shook his head. "I do _so_ have a chance. But you know who's super hot and actually in town?"

 

"Not Emily, that's for sure."

 

"Dude, that's just mean. But I mean, okay. _Tanith_."

 

Evan sputtered in laughter as they pulled into his date's uptown neighborhood. "Tanith? Ben's Tanith? _Tanith Belbin_? Dude, go back to Halle. I agree you have a chance."

 

"Shut up! We actually talked okay, yesterday- we actually talked."

 

"Yeah; I bet. It doesn't count if she told you to get out of her way, Charlie."

 

"She didn't.", Charlie told him, as Evan began hunting for the right house, scanning numbers against the Post-It Note he had carefully written her address on. "In fact, Tanith's great, she's really smart and we talked about the election. Of course, she can't vote yet because she doesn't have her papers, but she told me I was a very intelligent young man and she's gorgeous up close, okay? The ice just doesn't do her any justice. And she's got a really nice voice. Like, I could just listen to her all day, you know? She wants to be a news anchor, did you know that? _I bought her a slushie_."

 

"Maybe I should ask Tanith what the weather is, then. _Cloudy with a chance of tears raining down Charlie White's face while she makes out with Fedor_? Yeah, about right."

 

" _You suck_.", Charlie muttered, crossing his arms and wriggling down in his seat, like a petulant child. "But I'm telling you, Evan- she's totally _perfect_..."

 

* * *

 

 

Maybe that's not the memory she meant to bring up, but it just makes Charlie angry. He can't even think anymore. He tries to think of childhood memories, sometimes, because Landon is curious and will ask him about what life was like "with the dinosaurs", but they're tainted with the ghost of _Meryl_ and all his regrets; and his more recent memories, all belong to Tanith.

 

"Yeah. Remember when we used to have those big parties up here; and invite everyone at the rink? I think _that_ -", Charlie pauses to point at the big wooden dock across the water, "- is where Scott dunked Fedor after finding out that he was doing Tessa's homework for her when they were dating. Scott was _nuts_."

 

"Fedor was actually a lot smarter than most of us gave him credit for...but I don't think we ever went that far."

 

"Oh yeah, no- you were a _massive_ nerd."

 

A tiny smile is tugging up Meryl's lips. That's the thing about being real grown-ups; all the awkwardness of the past has faded to a kind of...well, they're not quite old enough for reverence, but certainly, a kind of regard they have for all those days lived. Fedor no longer makes Charlie angry; and Tessa and Scott are part of this distant past, like the very first house you were born in, which isn't something you remember, but it is something you know was there.

 

The internet, of course, could fill in the blanks, but Charlie leaves many of them vacant. He built those bridges after the Olympics were over, but now, they're empty. He doubts he will ever want to cross again.

 

"I used to...yeah- I used to really like all that stuff."

 

"The parties? Well, I'm just saying, me; you; and all of Landon's friends could definitely give the old us a run for our money."

 

"I meant; stuff like...I don't know, books and maps, like, all those weird, cool, facts? I used to be really into that.", she says, wistfully- though Charlie has a difficult time, even now, reconciling wistful with textbooks. But he gets it, mostly, because when Meryl was a huge nerd and he was always chasing after her for notes; they were both so eager and hopeful and happy, and maybe he's jogged up the wrong memory, too.

 

"What's your favorite book, Meryl?"

 

"I don't...see, I didn't have that much time to read, really-"

 

"You wanna know something kind of awesome?" He's holding both of her hands in his now, and her camera is resting in her lap, lights blinking. Charlie wants to kiss her right then and there, but he knows his parents are just inside, and probably; knowing his own mother's distaste for reality television and insistence she be present in "real reality"- watching through the half-shuttered windows.

 

"What?", Meryl says, in a flirty breath. Is it bad to be kinda horny out in the middle of nowhere with both pairs of your parents around, Charlie asks himself.

 

"I have a library card, so we could fix that."

 

Meryl wants to punch him in the face. It's such a stupid, _Charlie_ , thing to say. The fact it really does make her feel so much better makes her want to jump in the lake. He buries his face in the crook of her neck and whispers something else, in a much less silly voice; much more attractive than the promise of the Detroit Public Library.

 

 _Thank God they're grown-ups_ , she reminds herself, stifling a soft moan in the back of her throat. She wishes Charlie would just kiss her, because this is a moment she can definitely savor.

 

So, it's not surprising neither of them notice voices being raised and doors being slammed, because it's not like there's war in paradise, right?

 

* * *

 

This is what Paul Davis wakes up to: his wife (definitely), yelling. It takes him a few moments to realize that she's yelling at Jacqui White, because right, of course, they're out at the lake; with the kids. He isn't surprised to see Meryl's room door open as he pads down the hallway, and Charlie's room empty, of everything, from sheets to bags to a cooler, to any evidence he stayed there instead of with Meryl.

 

Them dating? It doesn't bother Paul too much. It's a fling at most, because they're both hurting and needing company which doesn't come in a family, and what he knows of Meryl is that she's unbreakable, and what he knows of Charlie is that he's absorbent. If they end badly- well, they'll just move on to better things. It's Cheryl's insistence that Meryl and Charlie as an actual couple is _Satan_ descended to earth that gets him every time. There are a lot worse things both of them could be doing, but the women; typically- as he overhears while he brushes his teeth, are being overdramatic.

 

"- _bullshit_ , Cheryl. You're the one whose bitter because your daughter isn't the person you wanted her to be. Did you ever think about she wants?", Jacqui is screaming.

 

"I don't know. But I do wonder what Charlie would be like if he'd been given _standards_.", shouts Cheryl.

 

" _How dare you_ -"

 

"Man, it's like, all the times they could've gotten pissed when the kids skated together; they're saving up for right now." Big Charlie emerges from the other bathroom, clean-shaven and dressed in a pair of shorts and a polo, shaking his head. "Do you think it's 'cause of us? Because we just left them alone with those two?"

 

Paul clears his throat, but before he can answer; he hears the lever of the toaster slam down and something metallic go flying into the sink. "I think it's different now.", he adds.

 

"You let whatever Charlie wants go, just as long as he's happy. How do you think Tanith feels right now? The mother of your grandchild? Or does everyone else just go by the way because your son is entitled to everything?"

 

"He's not entitled! He's worked so hard for everything that he has, and he is fine. He's a great dad, and a great person.", Jacqui argues, and even though Paul's really not on her side- he can't help but feel for her. He wishes he could say the same thing about Meryl without his wife glancing across the table at him and practically glowering. She hasn't done anything wrong, but of course, where they are right now is wrong, and it's as bad as losing your biggest stocks in the market.

 

Paul sucks in a breath, before he delves his mind back into eavesdropping.

 

"-and that's not true. Meryl knows better." Cheryl can't help but roll her eyes at the increasing ridiculousness of their conversation. She had come downstairs to get in an early breakfast before the Whites, and perhaps even invite Paul down to talk about their plans for the afternoon, not to be attacked by Jacqui White on a rampage thanks to her overhearing a private conversation she had on her property with her husband the night before.

 

"Oh, I'm sure you taught her a whole _lot_ better. And it's a shame, because if Charlie didn't love your daughter in a way that you people just can't understand, I wouldn't have to deal with any of the idiocy you think goes into raising a child."

 

Jacqui is so angry she's probably lost track of what year it is, because as Cheryl shoots back; "They aren't children."

 

" _Then why do you care so much if they're dating_?", says big Charlie, inadvertently announcing his presence, because if there's one thing he hates more than losing out on his Stanley Cup bets, it's any kind of unnecessary conflict. Paul pointedly looks away, praying that this won't be one of those moments when Cheryl loses all semblance of tact and really tells it like it is.

 

"Because right now- Charlie and Meryl are on the same level. And if she stays with him, she's stuck there."

 

_Dammit._

 

* * *

 

 

"Charlie!"

 

Suddenly, Charlie scampers away from Meryl, as he hears his mother call for him from the porch. His cheeks blossom to a dark shade of red and he sheepishly looks over at Meryl, and back down at his feet. It's one thing to be caught making out by your mother when you're thirteen, and quite another when you're closer to having a thirteen year old of your own.

 

Sex and sexy things in general are just so fucking awkward, because the newness of the experience has worn off, and the scientific purpose of sex is kind of a moot point, and it's just weird, having sex when you're not...well, sex is just _strange_. They still have it, though; giggly, half-awake, maybe-we-shouldn't-even-though-we're-dating sex.

 

Charlie likes kissing a lot more.

 

But its just so junior high, and his mother- there's just some things he wishes she could safely assume about him and not be proven wrong. Like, for example: "My divorced youngest son is moving on because he has a girlfriend and they probably have sex like normal people."

 

Instead, she gets the pleasure of catching him acting like a little boy while Meryl flicks up the flashbulb of her camera so she can take very loud, extremely overexposed, pictures of schools of fish and the dock Scott threw Fedor off of.

 

" _Mom_.", he whines, slightly surprised to realize he sounds kind of like Landon on his bad days. Kind of. Thirty years removed, but still- kind of.

 

"Charlie, we have to go. Right now. I've taken your things to the car already."

 

"What?" It's genuinely surprising. Who in their right mind drove all the way out to the lake just to turn right back around? "But...I, I mean, we have the place for the weekend. I don't know if Meryl's parents are going to stay, but it's ours, so you could if you wanted...I'm sure Meryl wouldn't mind."

 

"I know she wouldn't. Something...came up. With your...father.", his mother fills in haltingly, and immediately, Charlie is filled with concern. She must read it because he can practically see the gears shift backwards in her mind.

 

"It's a company issue. He didn't take care of it before we left; and you know how your Dad is, right?"

 

She's trying to force out a laugh, and reminds him of Tanith; before she had papers drawn up, when they were sitting on their front porch watching Landon draw on their driveway with sidewalk chalk.

 

"Yeah...I...I guess. But is there any way I could, um, stay? I mean...I'll just ride back with Meryl."

 

"I think it would be best if we just went now, Charlie. Cheryl...said they were going to stay a while, and you don't want to miss _Tuesday_ ; right?"

 

No, he doesn't because Tuesday is when he gets take Landon, until Friday morning, every week. It's the best day of the week. But now, he has a girlfriend who doesn't have a favorite book to think about, too.

 

"Right. Well, I'll just go...um, I'll go tell Meryl, I guess."

 

He walks back to their spot on the lake and tells her; and she takes the news fine, as she always has. She promises to text him later, and they don't kiss because his mother is still there; so when the Whites roll out on to the gravel road leading back to the highway, he just waves at her, still perched on the rock with her flashbulb out.

 

Charlie tries to pretend that it doesn't hurt when she doesn't turn around to wave back; because he's trying to forget all the memories he has of when he would raise his hand to wave, and she would already be looking.

 

Driving back to Bloomfield, his father is going just right at the speed limit, far too slow for a real company crisis. Charlie is exhausted, and constantly checking his phone for a text from Meryl. When the two of them wound up back in high school, he has no idea. But he is also irritable, and when he shuts his phone off, he can't stop thinking, and that's never good.

 

"Dad, what's wrong with the company?"

 

"Uh, there's a bunch of shipments that never came in, so I've gotta go to our main warehouse and sort that out." His father catches his mother's eye in the rearview mirror and shoots her a look that isn't lost on Charlie.

 

He used to give Tanith that same look all the time, but it meant something else.

 

"Oh. You guys would tell me if something happened, right? Like...I don't know, if um...Tanith and Landon's flight was delayed or my car got stolen, right?"

 

"Nothing happened.", says his mother, all too cheerily, considering he's just trying to have a normal conversation with them. "There's a minor problem, so we're going to fix it. That's it."

 

Charlie's parents are lying to him and it makes him want to _scream_.

 

* * *

 

"Daddy."

 

"Yes, son, what's up?"

 

Charlie and Landon are on the highway, listening to songs from the second Lego movie, which Charlie finds grating and horrible, but Landon is absolutely delighted with; as they speed as much as they can through Bloomfield Hills' snow-covered streets. All things considered, he expects to put in a good showing at brunch, given that his hair is looking terrifically good for a sleet-filled midwinter day; and he's managed to wrangle Landon's extra tie on and wearing it under his vest, it looks just fine on adult male.

 

Not to mention, he shaved, washed his face, and looks altogether presentable to the extended family, whose questions about where Tanith is he can practically hear buzzing through the third chorus of a song about blocks being not just awesome, but terrific. The last time he saw the other Whites, and his sisters' mom; it was Labor Day, and he had easily lied about Tanith being on assignment in Japan.

 

"She really loves it over there. She even took Landon. It's nice. I'll have to show you some pictures.", he forced out, while his mother shut her eyes tightly and shook her head. Uncle Thomas, from somewhere close enough to DC that he could see the very top of the Capitol building; thought it was absolutely terrific.

 

"Always get a woman who knows the world.", he had said. "That's my advice to all you boys. Because if she's seen the world and she comes back to you; she's special."

 

Four months later, Charlie is wondering whether Tanith should try being in Paris, or Los Angeles, or if the grapevine has reached enough members of his extended family (minus good ol' deaf great-aunt Monica) that he can just show up with his perfect-looking son and have them all coo over his baby and conveniently ignore his wife's absence. Well, there was a press release; but then again- some members of his family haven't seen the news live since he won a gold medal in Sochi, for which Charlie is thankful.

 

"You forgot turning!"

 

Charlie looks up into the rearview mirror; and finds the huge blue arrow pointing towards the row of communities in which he used to live; where Tanith's house, and Landon's room; all still are. He blinks and looks back at his son, humming along to more Lego songs.

 

"We're not going to your house, buddy. We're going to mine, remember? We're going to have some really great food with grandma and grandpa, and uncle Jason's going to be there-"

 

"What about Mommy?"

 

Charlie swallows, and slows the car down so he can turn around, facing Landon while they rumble through a neighborhood of sloppily-maintained townhouses. He and Tanith divorced when he had just turned three; and in a lot of ways, Charlie doesn't even know where he and Tanith stand.

 

Is your ex-wife supposed to say "I love you" in her texts?

 

"She's...well, you'll get to see her on New Year's. She's taking you to New York so you guys can watch all the fireworks and stuff. There's a lot of Lego in New York!"

 

Landon seems to absorb this information easily, nodding when he mentions Lego; and for that Charlie is thankful.

 

"But _...Daddy?"_

 

"Yes?"

 

"Mommy makes cookies...Grandma doesn't...", he murmurs, and Charlie knows before he sees Landon's tougue flick out; and tears begin to swim in his eyes- that a meltdown in imminent. He was with Meryl last night, and the Davises probably let Landon stay up late. He ate cake, and a huge helping of Cheryl's sheperd's pie; not to mention, all the candy Clayton and Alexa probably fed him because he was the only kid old enough for Christmas, really. So, sugar, no sleep, all these people and new excitements, and Charlie's surprised he held out this long.

 

"... _Daddy?"_

 

"Yes, buddy?", Charlie can barely force out. Of all the times his kid needs to lose it; it can't be anytime before he has to face his entire extended family, and convince all of them he's absolutely fine. Landon could have blown before dinner last night; or cried the moment Charlie left the table; but his perfect son just had to wait for the perfect moment; three blocks from the house he grew up in and went back to, on an unplowed road where Charlie can barely see the lanes, while songs about blue and red building blocks are blaring- that's when he starts to scream.

 

 _"I wanna go to my house_! All my presents- are! Because that's my-", he is hiccupping and sobbbing and Charlie is grateful Landon didn't inherit his athsma, because the last thing he needs right now is the possibility his son could stop breathing because he's screaming bloody murder from his carseat.

 

" _Santa_ doesn't- know! _You moved away_...Daddy- _please I wanna go to my house_!"

 

Charlie slams on the brakes and _almost_ plows into someone's streetside snowman, which wears a Happy Holidays sign around its thick neck.

 

He didn't _move away._

 

"We're not going to your house.", Charlie says, sternly, using the voice he hasn't heard out of his own mouth since he and Tanith were together; and he used to have to say no when Landon wanted something unreasonable.. "We're going to mine. End of story."

 

"No! I want presents _. I wanna go to my house!",_ Landon wails, and Charlie just wishes he would shut up. Landon loves staying with the Whites. He loves Grandma and Grandpa and loves his room there; which had used to be Jason's. He loves their dogs and their backyard and he's tired, Charlie tells himself.

 

"You will get presents. At our house. But _not_ if you don't calm down and stop using your outside voice."

 

Charlie focuses his gaze on the road ahead; pointedly ignoring the scene Landon is making in the backseat; where's he's struggling against his carseat and kicking at the back of the passenger seat. At the very least, he's small, and his shoes are new. Landon won't remember three-and-a-half at six, or eleven, or fourteen; so Charlie figures- he can cry it out, and then he can get cleaned up in the Meijer or Target or any of the few big-box centers kind of close to his house.

 

He saw that on an episode of some dumb parenting show which was on at one in the afternoon; that if you leave kids alone and they can't get an audience, then they'll stop. Landon needs to _stop._

 

He'll circle back, and tell his parents he drove slowly, even though he's blasting through a snow route with his son sobbing loudly in the backseat- faster than he remembers going during the horribly irresponsible phase he had during his early twenties.

 

"No. I wanna go home!", he cries, and Charlie nearly screams into the fucking steering wheel.

 

"We _are_ going home.", he almost barks out, the frustration of this entire day, and all of last night, and really- all of his fucking life lately, bubbling up inside him like the steam Landon's shaky breaths make on his window.

 

 _"Home's with Mommy._ Over there!" He's pointing backwards, towards that stupid missed exit and Charlie can't stop himself as he turns around and smacks his son's hand down.

 

" _Stop it_.", he seethes; and of course, Landon only cries harder, clutching his wrist and choking as Charlie reels back.

 

"Shit. Fuck. _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck_."

 

He pulls over in the Meijer parking lot and tries to breathe. The car is stuffy, and it's too loud. It's hot and loud and he can't believe the stupid Lego songs are still playing. He's not going to his family's brunch with Landon's face all wet and his new suit ruined so his stupid sisters and Jason can all look at him like he's failing at being a father, which he kind of just did.

 

Charlie glances up into the rearview, where Landon is limp in the carseat, and silent tears are still falling down his face.

 

"Landon?"

 

He won't look up, and those gorgeous blue eyes Tanith said he was so lucky to have inherited are cold.

 

"Buddy?"

 

Nothing. Charlie sighs, and unbuckles his seatbelt so he can climb into the back, where he can't undo the harness quick enough and gather his son into his arms. There's no excited wriggle against the crook of his neck, or happy laughter as Charlie rocks him slowly. Landon's breathing slows, and his tears dry in the blare of the heating system. He's warm, and tiny, and this is Charlie's whole world.

 

"I'm sorry, buddy. That wasn't nice. I'm so _sorry.",_ Charlie tells him, over and over once he has calmed down enough to be strapped back into his seat.

 

Landon says "You were just mad.", and Charlie hears the sharp crack of a slap in the face.

 

"It's _okay._ Daddy?"

 

"Yes?"

 

"Love you."


	6. Chapter 6

They hail a cab; or at least pretend to when one pulls up on to the street beside them. It is missing a medallion, the drivers' eyes hooded by the shadow his rearview mirror casts. Usually, Charlie would be more cautious, but tonight, he feels invincible.

 

Meryl's shoulder presses into the soft flesh of his hips when she sprawls across the back seat, grabbing at their takeaway bag.

 

"God, I love these biscuits.", she breathes out between swallows.

 

Charlie is flying, and the neon lights of the closed stores and sketchy clubs they speed by blur in his mind. They're making out on top of the Ferris Wheel. They're sitting by the lake with Meryl's camera. They're sitting in her bedroom. They're crying. They're laughing, now, because they aren't Olympians anymore and Meryl has had three of these biscuits and Charlie wants to get donuts for breakfast tomorrow.

 

Meryl is caught in his whirlwind, because all of a sudden, as they tumble from the cab and Charlie tosses bills at the drivers' shuttered window, and they clumsily fall into each other while Charlie unlocks the door to the White's house- it all seems so easy.

 

Charlie loves her.

 

All of her.

 

This could be the life she has always imagined, after all.

 

She imagines an explosion, the kind that obliterates her entire life and leaves nothing but a pristine, clean slate behind when Charlie drops his keys on the mat, and pulls her into him, his hands tangling into her hair while they kiss.

 

They feel like children, and it feels amazing. Suddenly, without warning, he breaks the kiss, gripping he by the shoulders while he pulls away.

 

"I'll be waiting...upstairs.", he says, a teasing lilt to his voice.

 

"Well...I hope you aren't waiting long."

 

He can't believe his luck, and she ducks into the bathroom, willing her heart to slow.

 

It's good he can't read the terror in her voice anymore.

 

* * *

 

 

Cheryl has busied herself with scrubbing their pristine cabin tableware when Paul decides he's the man of the house, and he just can't take it more.

 

The Whites' rumble down the gravel path leading back to civilization; and he drinks a cup of coffee with two creams and three sugars while Meryl; his daughter- the record should reflect, is sitting cross-legged atop one of the large, flat stones by the dock.

 

She is still snapping pictures, of a world obscured by early morning fog, and all he sees is the light of her flashbulb swallowed by the clouds while she is shuddering, because the damn jacket she's wearing is suddenly too light for the gust of wind which nips at the center of the lake.

 

"You shouldn't have said that.", he says- to empty space.

 

Cheryl turns on the sink. "I needed to.", she tells him. "I'm sure it'll come up when I'm judged before God."

 

Cheryl is five feet deep in digging her own grave.

 

"I'm sure we'll all have something to answer for."

 

He just wants to fight her already. He wants to melt down Meryl's gold medal and forget that there were those twenty years she had with Charlie, those years Cheryl spent building her just to have all of her hard work go to waste, like he reminds him every night that they are keeping their daughter in her childhood bedroom, pretending she isn't on the run so much as on an extended vacation; while Clayton's calls go to voicemail and the counselor which he had thought wise to set up for Meryl gets the receiver slammed back against the kitchen counter when she says "Hello."

 

"Hmmm. I'll apologize, I think. But I'll apologize when she talks to Charlie, and reminds him that this is...it's not worth the trouble they're putting themselves through."

 

"What is this is worth it for her...not because of Charlie?", Paul forces himself to say.

 

His daughter is a mystery, and in that endeavor, he combs over every possibility when he startles awake at night; her 2AM coffee breaks and the soft sobbing he hears at midnight, still unfamiliar in a house where their children haven't lived for over a decade.

 

"You think she's doing this...with him...to him, because of Landon?"

 

"I've thought about it."

 

He turns away from the window, and towards the stove. There's a lighter in the drawer and as he turns up the flame and watches the spark catch fire, he asks Cheryl; "Honey, do you want chicken or ham in the omelette?"

 

"Oh, ham of course.", she replies, and while he slices ham, and she cracks the eggs and hunts through their pantry for eggs; Meryl is almost upstairs, entangled in her...husband, Paul fills in, and Tanith is in the bathroom, because they have invited Charlie and his family to spend the weekend.

 

This is better.

 

* * *

 

 

Jacqui is greeting their guests with a wicker basket decorated with a gingham bow at the door, dressed in a bright red dress which Charlie wishes he had the balls to tell her she was getting far too old for.

 

It doesn't matter, though- because Jason, his tattoos covered in a smart suit, clambers in behind he and Landon, and declares: "Mom, you're in the AARP. I'm begging you, please go shopping."

 

The entire front parlor erupts in laughter, and Charlie hears Meryl's; squeezed into the back corner where she is drowned out, very nearly, by the chorus of his mother's mechanical Christmas elves. The Whites have always done Happy Holidays quite well.

 

"Well, I think I look fine just to see the family, Jason.", she chuckles, and the assembled group of them laughs again.

 

It sounds like the reruns of Seinfeld Charlie watches when he is alone, and sitting in his bedroom, his phone gripped tightly in his hand while he waits for a pinging noise that alerts him to Tanith; sending along another picture of Landon.

 

His son is riding miniature donkeys and hugging costumed starfish at amusement parts, and Charlie is listening to the laugh track play on his life.

 

God, he hates these gatherings so fucking much.

 

"Hey, whatever you say, Mom. You know I'm gonna love you no matter what. Meanwhile this little man right here..." Jason comes up behind Charlie, and scoops Landon out of his arms. "This is the main event. How are you, kiddo?"

 

Landon slightly shrugs his shoulders, and Charlie's sisters and nieces coo and giggle. Charlie wishes the ground would just swallow him up.

 

He loosens the laces on his shoes and slips them off while his now-teenage nieces take Landon from Jason (who feigns great offense at this), ruffle his hair, and tug on his bowtie. He basks in the attention, and Charlie is happy the spotlight is temporarily off him as he greets his parents and tries desperately to remember every etiquette lesson he tossed out the window last night.

 

"Phones in the basket, boys. We're going tech free this year!", his mother announces, and Charlie gleefully dumps his phone, messenger of that horrifying 'I Love You' from Tanith, in with the others in her basket. Jason pretends he just has so many important things to keep track of, before tossing it in while the laugh track plays.

 

"He kinda looked like he was crying.", Jason has the tact to whisper in his ear while they hug.

 

"Yeah. We passed Starbucks and I didn't get him a hot chocolate. It's kind of a big deal.", Charlie tells him. He lies easy now, something years of acting lessons never quite trained him for as well as the past year of life has.

 

"Cute." Jason claps him on the shoulder and laughs. "I'm glad you guys are doing well, man."

 

Jason's such a dumbass, Charlie wonders how he wound up the older brother.

 

"Hi, Charlie."

 

His ears pique up at the sound of her voice, and the blur she cuts through the crowd as she rises from behind the tree to meet him.

 

"I like this tie much better than yesterday's. At least someone's on top of the fashion game!" Meryl is being unnaturally chipper, and her smile is tight across her face. Her voice is careful, measured, like she has the barrel of a gun pressed into the back of her head, where she has accessorized a bun with a string of light blue pearls. Charlie is immediately reminded he didn't get her anything; the least of worried considering his three sisters are glancing expectantly up at he and Meryl, as if the laugh track has paused for the punchline.

 

"Yeah; you look great, too! Amazing what you can fit in that luggage, right?" He throws in a laugh to convince Lindsay, who is on the very verge of shaking her head.

 

"I forgot to thank you and your parents for that wonderful meal yesterday. Hopefully we measure up.", Charlie adds.

 

His mother, with her basket full of their cell phones, and Cheryl, dressed in a deep navy blue dress with white piping, nod to each other as if an agreement neither Meryl nor Charlie is privy to has just been made.

 

"Of course. Do you want to help me bring up the kids' presents?", asks Meryl.

 

They rush down the hallway, into the kitchen, where Jacqui has stacked boxes according to families. There's a tiny box atop a slightly bigger one, definitely shirt-sized, marked "for Landon", and Charlie shakes his head at his mother's naivety. She probably bough him something stupid and cheap, like Lincoln Logs, which Charlie knows he won't like because kids today are into things that are a whole lot bigger. 

 

"About last night...", she begins, bent down in front of him in a tight burgundy dress belted at her still-tiny waist.

 

Charlie tells himself he has a wife, and then- he remembers that isn't the case anymore.

 

"I know...", he says, sheepishly. "I shouldn't have...especially because I...neither of us should be in compromising positions right now and I was just tired Meryl. I'm sorry if I-"

 

"Charlie."

 

She is standing before him, brightly wrapped boxes in her arms.

 

"They don't know.", she hisses, just low enough for him to hear.

 

"What?"

 

"Last night...my parents think you were just overwhelmed because of Tanith-" (Charlie notices, she says this like someone might say cyanide, or cancer) "-and we went upstairs and we talked. That's what my mom told yours and they don't know about....me."

 

"Shit!"

 

Charlie kicks at a box still on the floor, under his parents' present for Landon. He lives here, so he can always grab whatever crappy toy that is afterwards.

 

"You threw me under the bus? With these people?"

 

"This is your family, Charlie. It isn't anything they don't know but please, Charlie- what I told you last night, please don't tell them."

 

He shakes his head, unable to comprehend why of all the days, this is the kind of world he wakes up to on Christmas morning, the one where his partner for almost twenty years; who was always stronger than the aluminum that carved out the blades of their skates- is begging him to cover for the fact she's pretty much on the run from some asshole she wishes loved her.

 

Charlie wishes he could tell her all of that, but instead, incredulous, he says, "You mean you didn't even tell your mom? About...not him...but the other thing?" "Of course not. She'd...she would go off on me."

 

He quirks an eyebrow at that, because Cheryl was always understanding. Of him, at least.

 

"Just don't...if it gets awkward, like it used to, just don't...Charlie, I'm so sorry. But don't throw me under the bus, too. I can't-"

 

"You could...talk to my Mom. She's always, um I mean, you should talk to somebody, right?"

 

"I'm talking to you, right?"

 

Charlie shrugs and throws a few more boxes on top of the stack cradled in his left arm. "It's not the same, you know that. But-" (and he is thinking of Jason having these same conversations with him, where he prays for his heart to stop every moment as Jason dispenses stupid advice) "-uh, let's not think about that today. I mean...there's a time and place, right?"

 

"Okay.", she says, and fixes Charlie with maybe the first genuine smile he has seen on her face in the past two days.

 

Well, two days, and five years, too- technically.

 

* * *

 

 

When his mother is finally ready to serve the food, Charlie squeezes in beside Meryl and his son, boosted up to the big table on a couch cushion, his eyes wide with wonder and a blue streak of Magic Marker in his blond curls. His sister Stephanie glances over at her two girls and rolls her eyes, and Charlie just shrugs. It's going to wash out, anyway.

 

There's a huge stuffed turkey and casserole dishes full of potluck items from his sisters, and Jason is rounding the table, a bottle of champagne in one hand and a washed-out wine bottle filled with red Kool-Aid in the other.

 

When Landon is served, he waits barely a second before he pours his Kool-Aid into his mouth, or at least tries to aim him cup in that general direction. Most of the bright red drink winds up on the front of shirt, dribbling down his face and splattered across his suit.

 

"I'm drunk!", he screams, and even Charlie joins in the laugh track, while his mother shakes her head and Meryl- poker-faced as she and Clayton lock eyes across the table, can't help the grin which tugs at her lips.

 

"The word you're looking for is wet.", Charlie tries to deadpan, while he wrestles his son from his seat and into his arms. But his smile stretches wide across his cheeks.

 

They manage to make it back in record time; with Landon dressed in a much more comfortable combo of a white polo and khakis.

 

Maybe it won't work as well with the pictures, but Charlie figures, wiping his son's face while he is giggling, perched on the bathroom counter- it's formal and classic enough.

 

"This used to be my favorite outfit when I was little like you.", he tells Landon, who just shakes his head.

 

"But you're too big, Daddy!"

 

"I hope you're taller than me!", Charlie jokes, setting his son down on the floor.

 

Landon cocks his head and looks all the way up.

 

"You're way too big. I don't wanna be. I wouldn't fit in anything!"

 

They get back just as grace begins, which Charlie regrets the moment he walks into his mother beginning with "Dear Heavenly Father..."

 

Meryl's head is bowed in intense concentration, her hands folded in her lap. Neither of them were so much deeply religious as they were traditional, but if divine intervention needed a time to exist, he figures- it may as well be now.

 

"-we're so thankful for the blessings we've received over the past year, and how you've allowed us to come together in this place, no matter what the circumstances that got as here-"

 

Charlie can feel Meryl go slack beside him while he places Landon on top of his cushion.

 

"-as we look forward to the challenges and blessings that the New Year will bring, we thank you for these gifts. Amen."

 

"Amen.", Charlie repeats, altogether too quickly. "Let's eat."

 

They're stuffed by the time his nieces and nephews clear the table, and the kids are sugared up while their parents are buzzed with alcohol and the feeling of companionship on Christmas Day.

 

Charlie used to call that love, when he had Tanith's hand to hold beside him.

 

Landon is bouncing, and Charlie can feel the epic meltdown coming tomorrow once the decorations start to be cleared and he's no longer got an audience to act on his best behavior for.

 

"He's just like you.", Meryl offers, while they're pushing their chairs back in to join the rest of the family and open their presents.

 

"Yeah. I hope not.", Charlie says with a sigh, as Landon jets off down the hall, pretending to skate in his socks.

 

Meryl is the first to get a miraculous five neatly wrapped boxes dropped in her lap when they're congregated in the parlor again, and she is beside Charlie on the carpet, jus every so slightly leaning into his side.

 

"Santa's never gotten the memo you were in Italy, so you've go the five-year backlog here.", Jacqui teases, clearly delighted that Meryl, who told embellished tales of her overseas adventures with each glass of champagne Jason poured for her, has somehow taken time out of her busy schedule to visit Michigan. Charlie thinks maybe God needs to his work a little faster, and just kill him so it can end already.

 

"Well, we don't even have a chimney back home!", she jokes, and Charlie feels a tug of pain in a place he's felt nothing from in years as she ends her sentence. "Yeah, it's all solar.", Meryl fills in, and their parents and his siblings and Clayton and everybody oohs and aahs as one should over the advanced environmental policies of another country.

 

She opens her gifts carefully, folding the wrapping paper beside her as she does. It's mostly jewelry, but she's gotten a pair of riding boots which she seems amazed at, and Charlie agrees- his mother may take her holiday spirit a little too far, but when she does it well, it's truly well done.

 

Meryl flips open the top of the box and suddenly, her face falls. "Well...I think I forgot to give Santa my size...", she jokes weakly. The kids chuckle, and Lindsay, master of subtle recoveries, whisks the box away and throws it on top of the sofa before Meryl can register any more shock.

 

"We'll switch, babe. There's no way I'm fitting into this sweater. Ugh!"

 

Charlie doesn't understand what the big deal is, until he looks back, closer- at the label on the shoebox and sees the 8.

 

Tanith's size, not Meryl's.

 

* * *

 

 

Once the kids start to open their gifts, the parlor becomes a maze of ripped paper, half open boxes, and clothes (uninteresting) thrown aside for them all to play with their latest toys and gadgets.

 

The teens are watching a movie on Charlie's niece Avery's new laptop, and Landon and his nephew Vince are on the floor, where Vince is trying to teach Landon a secret handshake. Meryl is exhausted by all the interaction, and nestled against Charlie's arm, listening half-heartedly to Jason and Stephanie argue about the last season of their favorite TV show.

 

"We're still gonna talk later, right?", he mutters.

 

"Yeah. Maybe. Tell your mom thanks for the...um, the necklace.", she tells him, her eyes fluttering closed. "I can't believe she messed up me and Lindsay's..."

 

"Yeah. Me neither." It's for both of their sakes.

 

"Ow!", Landon suddenly cries, and Charlie's eyes snap to follow his son.

 

"Aw, I barely touched you! I just gave you a-", Vince rolls his eyes, glancing at his mother, who has one eyebrow raised, "-a really light high-five. Sorry, Landon."

 

He's rubbing at the back of his hand, cradled to his chest.

 

"Um, it's okay. Daddy just hit me there and it still hurts kinda.", Landon decides to point out, and Charlie practically wills his heard to stop pumping.

 

"-but I was just saying if they hadn't died in that explosion, it would have been cool to see if she would have still dated- What was that, buddy?", Jason turns to face Charlie, almost glowering.

 

"My hand kinda hurts."

 

"Why?"

 

"Just because."

 

"Yeah. We're gonna go see what's wrong then.", Charlie nearly grunts in frustration. He's not about to be put on trial before his brother and sisters just so he can become the family pity case like he was when he moved back in with their parents.

 

He scrambles up, and Meryl startles awake.

 

"I think I could check him out, right?", Jason offers, standing between the boys.

 

"No, I'll go...get ice, or something. I need to stretch my legs anyway." It's Meryl, locking eyes with Charlie as she crosses the carpet to pick up his son in a silent defence Charlie knows is supposed to make up for what she told their parents about last night. "Vince, why don't you show me around?"

 

"Okay!", he shouts, eager to be useful, and completely oblivious to the silent tension behind the adults in the room. "Follow me!"

 

"What the fuck, man?", Jason asks, his voice low so as not to attract their parents; who are boxing up leftovers in the kitchen's attention.

 

"What? He's a three-year-old boy. Vince is ten and says lots of things that aren't true.", Charlie shoots back. "They're just kids and Vince probably high-fived him too hard. I can't believe you're making such a big deal out of this."

 

"Dude, because hitting your kids is messed up!"

 

"I didn't!"

 

"You think Landon would lie about that?"

 

Charlie shakes his head and slaps his palms down on the table. "I don't know, he thinks that an airplane is a giant dragon pocket he's riding in and that Tanith is the tooth fairy because she's away on business a lot. Jesus Christ, he's a kid. He could get slapped in the face and not remember that next week."

 

"Actually, yes, he would. The interactions kids have really young are important to their future development, and when he's older, he might be scared of you because he remembers that; but not know how to talk about it. That could really hurt him, Charlie.", says Stephanie, who practically pulls her Child Development degree out of her wallet to prove her point.

 

"I didn't do anything. And if I was gonna....spank...my kid, that's none of your business. Especially yours, Steph. Landon isn't some case study in a textbook and I can raise him however I want to without you people interfering."

 

"We're your family, Charlie.", Jason spits. "Landon is our flesh and blood, too, and if you're losing it because you and Tanith got divorced, you need to man up and make sure he's safe first, then work on yourself."

 

"Stay in your goddamn lane.".

 

"I'm in it."

 

The bile starts to rise in his throat, and between his sisters and the wrapping paper on the floor, the twinkling lights of their Christmas tree and Jason's burning eyes, Charlie feels like running.

 

He grabs his phone from his mother's basket by the door; and doesn't bother to tie his shoes when he bolts for the car, mercifully parked far enough down the street he can just leave without having to maneuver around everyone else's; and stays in his lane- the right one- until his gas meter begins to run dangerously low.


	7. Chapter 7

 

There's a Fast Gas 45 station sandwiched between the large expanse of snow-covered trees leading into Canada, and the giant sign that welcomes visitors to Pure Michigan, because Charlie drove, and drove, and drove, and made it all the way to the state line.

 

Or, what must be maybe fifty miles away. Close enough. If his tank had been full, he gleefully would have continued past the border, probably gotten busted for being belligerent and having no passport and charged for being a possible terrorist and never allowed to see Landon again; like his day- Christmas day, stood to get any worse at all.

 

Jason was an asshole; and his sisters were never on his side to begin with.

 

They'd loved Tanith and been genuinely shocked to find out she and Charlie were splitting up- because Tanith was everything- pretty and polite and driven, from a good family with solid values, with both of her jobs paying more than enough money than they needed.

 

"That's nice of her; that she's coaching and doing the TV thing while you're...you know.", Stephanie had told him once, after he had deferred his acceptance into Michigan's faculty of Law in order to explore himself, he'd said.

 

She'd also made a rude joke about how he probably meant jacking off, because he was forever their baby brother- and nodded sympathetically while Landon, not quite ten months old, threw plastic blocks against the side of his playpen and Tanith poked them back towards him through the mesh.

 

"I mean; yeah, you've got a lot to figure out, especially because Meryl's just left and I guess she's always been your-"

 

"It's got nothing to do with Meryl. Meryl has her own life. I'm happy she's leaving. She hated it here anyway.", Charlie blurted out; and then; suddenly, Tanith looked up, searching him with an inexplicable expression. "It'll be...good for her. And I'm going to be around more, which is pretty cool, right babe?"

 

"Yeah. It'll be good.", Tanith has said, her eyes locked to Landon's crown of light curls. "I'm sure it'll be really good."

 

"Fuck!", Charlie cried against his steering wheel; as he pulled into the station, empty except for a huge cargo truck filling up at the diesel bay.

 

It wasn't fair, how Meryl was like the architect of destruction- and she'd wrecked his life and his marriage and destroyed his relationship with a woman he really had loved by doing nothing other that existing; halfway across the world, mind you.

 

It wasn't fair; how his entire family hated him because he loved Tanith enough to let her go; and how they all thought he had to be completely insane to have a child and decide he didn't want him raised in a home where all he and Tanith did was scream and throw things.

 

It wasn't fair; how he still loved them all despite what a shitty assemblage of people he happened to have in his corner.

 

* * *

 

 

Meryl reads about out-of-body experiences, in the window seat of an airplane with the ribbon of a medal threaded through her hand; because the very thought of letting it go is pure sacrilege.

 

She looks down through the clouds, a grayish sunrise just barely on the horizon, and wonders about what kind f life she would have, if she were one of those people who would untangle the medal and throw it out the window and laugh at herself while it sunk through layer four of the earth's atmosphere. If she were like Charlie; whose hands climb up her hips while he is unbuttoning her shirt- Meryl wonders who exactly she would be.

 

She is wearing a green sleeveless top underneath; and green makes her look paler, an afterthought that sends a shudder through her chest because people like Charlie; who laugh while the world crumbles and somehow make it through okay; deserve so much better.

 

His fingers drum lightly over her flesh, like a stone skimming over placid waters. Meryl swears she can feel his heartbeat in his fingertips, like a skipping stone.

 

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

 

Charlie always throws his rocks too hard, and five is a new record.

 

He crawls closer. His hand grips her waist and pulls towards him, across his bed.

 

While she is thinking of skipping rocks with him; her mouth has fallen open, and Charlie's tongue flicks to the bottom of her upper lip.

 

Charlie's sheets are red, and scratchy. His palms feel heavy, and they're dry.

 

"Charlie.", she chokes out, feeling her blood run colder when his eyes snap up into hers.

 

"Y-yeah?"

 

Their kiss is broken, only slightly. Close enough she can still feel his breath. It's hot; and damp. He smells like breath mints and a hint of their dinner.

 

"Something wrong?", he asks, in a whisper- because they have had sex before, and before; Meryl's mother called her to pick up groceries, and before, Charlie forgot he had to pick Landon up at his music class. Things happen, and sex is interruptible and not at all perfect.

 

"Charlie..."

 

"What's up? Like...shit, are you supposed to be home or something tonight?"

 

"Uh....no..'m-" The words won't come and Meryl's throat is tight with worry.

 

"Charlie, could we talk?"

 

He makes a noise she can only describe as something between shock and pain and anger,

 

"I am sick of talking. Just-...so sick-" Charlie's hands are raking through his curls and his eyes are shut tightly in frustration.

 

"I don't not want to; I just...Charlie I have to tell you something-"

 

"Tell me something right now. Just right fucking now. Do you want to right now?" "Yes. But; Charlie...please-" "Walk out of my entire fucking life after tonight. I don't care. Hate me for the rest of your life. But right now, Meryl; I don't want to talk. Please. C'mon. I promise, after this, I can just be your dick ex-partner and ex-boyfriend and I will fucking never try to call you again. Just-"

 

Meryl's hands tighten into fists curled around his deep, red, sheets. "I wouldn't do that."

 

He nods, fervently, feverishly. "I know. I know you wouldn't."

 

They've had sex before; and Meryl kind of hoped tonight they were making love for the first time.

 

Except; they're not. Her fault; but when her eyes lazily open as Charlie is unbuttoning his jeans; she catches his eyes- sparkling; his mouth, curled into that wicked, life-loving grin.

 

They may not be making love; but he will be- and that will have to be enough.

 

* * *

 

 

Charlie tips her back on to the bed, his frenzied, hungry kisses clawing their way down her neck. His chin scratches against her cheek as he dips and sucks on the thin skin stretched across her collarbones, and she feels fire, burning and not quite passionate, rip through her middle. She can't help the soft moan that escapes her lips as he snakes underneath her top; and deftly unhooks her bra, bitten fingernails raking down her shoulder blades.

 

"I love you, Meryl.", he gasps, his breaths paced with the movements of his thumb, tracing circles up to her nipples as they harden in response.

 

She wants to say she loves him too, but she doesn't. Instead, she lets her body lead as Charlie pulls at her top, and tugs it off. Her bra falls away easily, and green fabric tangles around her forearms as Charlie takes them both down again, his hips heavy and his sheets pricking at the thin red welts his nails have left on her back.

 

Her hips sway with Charlie's fingers, looped through the lace band at the top of her panties as he pulls them down; her hips arc with his tongue, flicking and sucking from her breasts down to her stomach, running along her ribs and kissing the spaces between the bones. He pulls her closer towards him when he comes up for air, and she leans into him, kissing with all the passion she can muster.

 

He tastes bitter; and she tastes copper- from her cracked lips where she has bitten down and pulled at bits of skin to calm herself. Blood, but he doesn't seem to mind, and Charlie is a mess of gravelly breaths and soft grunts, trying to keep himself under control while he gets her warm. That's just who Charlie is, and Meryl; her mind locked in white-knuckled apprehension as a familiar warmth spreads from her center when her legs open to meet him and her hands curl around his waist as he pulls off his briefs.

 

Charlie, fully erect, is a masterpiece. The light from his desk lamb behind him shines in the triangle between his legs like a herald.

 

She scrambles up on to her elbows, leaning forwards towards him.

 

"No.", he says, roughly, pushing her shoulders back. "Not...like that today."

 

Her legs spread apart, he sinks into her hips; exploding inside her.

 

Meryl wants to scream.

 

Charlie pumps inside her again; and the reflection of the lamp's light against his hair is a blinding white flash that numbs the ache twisting in her belly.

 

Instinctively, she wants nothing more than to force her hips to tuck under; and curl into herself away from him where she can breathe again. But instead, she invited him further inside; gritting her teeth against the pain. She races the challenge and forces herself back into sanity; willing herself to bring the room back into sharp focus.

 

It could almost feel euphoric, for how much it hurts.

 

But soon enough; it's over.

 

Charlie is laughing, spent; and shouts "Yeah!" into the midnight hour.

 

He has rolled beside her, linking their hands together between them.

 

"I fucking love you.", he says again; as Meryl blinks- not quite sure how she is still breathing.

 

Charlie would have felt her heartbeat with each stroke of dampened agony that still presses into her while her eyes are trained, unfocused on his ceiling fan.

 

This man isn't Charlie.

 

She doesn't really love him.

 

This is a one night stand; with a just-under overweight divorced man who has pawned off his son with his ex-wife; in his parents' house on his childhood bed.

 

* * *

 

 

It is Christmas Day and Meryl watches Charlie drive away; stalking through the snow from the hallway window while Vince leads she and Landon into the kitchen; and when she sends the older boy away with a smile and a promise to teach her the rest of their handshake later- she lifts him up on to the counter to get a closer look.

 

They are eye-level; and Landon's eyes are Charlie's blue; deep and clear and exquisite. He studies her as though she is a new fascination, and Meryl realizes with a start that she is.

 

The last time she saw Landon, he was a gurgling baby in Tanith's arms, crying while she kissed the top of his head and balanced bottles of milk with the glasses of sparkling water that were always in her hand.

 

 

"He's only like this for a little while. He's an awesome kid. He makes me want to have like, three more.", she had laughed; and then- Meryl had almost felt sorry for her. She was married and had been pregnant (how could she want to do it again?) and had a job and aspirations all within the same forty miles, and that was deeply unsatisfying, Meryl thought.

 

How Tanith dealt with it, when for so long, they'd been close friends who could have been the exact same girl- was a mystery.

 

Now, though- as Landon's feet swung under him against the White's kitchen drawers; and he blew up at stray locks of golden blonde hair falling in his eyes; jealousy she only knew existed in gossip rags swelled inside her chest.

 

"Hi...buddy. Can I see your hand for a second?" He nodded, curls bouncing on the top of his head.

 

"Yeah." "My name is Landon. What's yours?" he asked, smiling up at Meryl while she took his tiny hand in hers.

 

"Meryl."

 

"I knew that. I saw pictures!"

 

"Of me? Really?"

 

Landon giggles and grabs at her rings, toying with them between his small, chubby, fingers. "Yes. You like dancing and you live...away. Like Daddy does. You were on TV..."

 

"Yes, I was.", Meryl chuckled. Of course; it's still what she's remembered for; and maybe- in a way, it's for the best. There's a reason she's still friends with Erin Andrews, instead of Jeremy; and still talks to Maks and Val and Jenna; when she hasn't heard personally from Alex and Maia Shibutani in months.

 

They love the person she's created, and everyone else just remembers the person she is.

 

Flawed. Overwhelmed. Broken, maybe. Probably.

 

She turns his hand over in hers, and runs a finger over the light green bruise forming just above his wrist.

 

Landon sucks in a breath and her chest tightens, because this is Charlie's child, and Charlie would never hurt his child.

 

"I think you're okay...just a little bruise. No more high fives from Vince, okay?" He laughs, just like Charlie; and shakes his head.

 

"No high fives!"

 

"Good."

 

Meryl lifts him from the counter and perches him on her hip, where she can't help but bounce him up and down a couple of times as the make their way back down the hall. It's like he's weightless; and it's the easiest thing in the world.

 

She could love Landon; maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments appreciated here or on Tumblr...or e-mail because a bunch of you are on that chain. Hope you enjoyed, and please don't have sex because you feel "obligated" to; and also- use lube if you're apprehensive! You don't want it to hurt and you don't want to have the talk coming in chapter...eight. :) Stay safe.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed a few things in this chapter and broke up what I wanted to be one chapter...so Landon scenes next time? Sorry for the wait...I had school get in the way!

"You have five job applications on the table. It's not hard to write your name, is it? Under accomplishments, or whatever that section is, maybe you could say you wrote that book.", Cheryl said flippantly, bringing down the cleaver to slice at the night's ham.

 

"I was going to write it.", Meryl told her through gritted teeth.

 

"Then why didn't you? Three months is a lot of time. Lots of library hours.", she had said, folding each thin slice of ham in half and laying in on a porcelain platter, in a sunburst flying from a centerpiece of potatoes and string beans.

 

"I try."

 

"Tried, honey. The conjugation may have changed for you, but you know, grammar's still important around here."

 

"I'm trying."

 

"Meryl..."

 

She wonders if it's wrong to hate your mother, if that's going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back and sends her to hell.

 

Then again, hell wasn't so bad. Nice place. Had a nice lake, and a cute guy.

 

"What? What the...fuck...is your problem with me? I don't do anything, I've cooked dinner, what- three times this week and I clean up around the house. I'm- I'm always around and I don't even see anyone except for-"

 

"Good to know I have a sixteen-year-old again, then. Honey, I don't care if you hate me, or your Dad. I care that you please, for God's sake, do something that isn't...whatever this is. I love you, but it isn't my job to love what you're doing to yourself.", Cheryl huffed into the empty air before her.

 

If she tried hard enough, she could almost see Meryl, her crestfallen face reflected in the shining handle of their dishwasher; though then again- she had a meat cleaver in one hand and perhaps it was best to concentrate on the task at hand.

 

"How low are you going to get with this extended soul-searching...thing going to go before you've had enough of yourself?"

 

"I-..."

 

She ran.

 

Of course.

 

All the way to three suburbs over; until Charlie sent her a text telling her to get ready for their date.

 

Slinking in the back door, slipping into an outfit she chose in the dark from her drawers; unwilling to turn her bedroom lights on for fear of anther confrontation, packing a compact of makeup into her purse beside her wallet, painting it on in a WalMart parking lot, and speeding to his house; kissing him for everything he was worth on his front porch.

 

For what it was worth; Meryl had been doing a pretty good job of keeping her head above water.

 

Before.

 

* * *

 

 

After, Charlie has said I love you exactly three times, and Meryl has said nothing, which is surprising.

 

No breathy, "Love you, too"- an invitation to kiss her with a gentleness and reverence he had reserved for his wife. No flirty, joking, "Of course you do, loser.", his favorite inside joke between them.

 

He wants to look over at her to make sure she's okay; because today he was quite passionate, is the nicer way of saying it. But something, God maybe- or just good reasoning keeps its' weight on his chest so he stays staring up at the ceiling letting the light make his eyes swim.

 

Life is perfect in this moment; and Meryl must be agreeing, or else she'd say something.

 

"Hey, are you listening?", he chuckles.

 

"C'mon. Don't say you're sick of me already."

 

He rolls over, fighting that force in his center and pulls her to his chest, ignoring the whimper she makes as he tugs the sheet around the both of them. She grips his arm like a lifeline.

 

"You okay? Are you...uh, cold?"

 

"Freezing."

 

Her voice is, too.

 

Charlie throws himself back on the bed.

 

"What the fuck, Meryl? Why do we always-"

 

"I told you we should talk."

 

* * *

 

 

It really isn't her voice he hears when she starts to speak.

 

It's Gian's, when Charlie is sitting in his car, Christmas Day; rubbing his hands together and decides to check the messages on his phone. His fingers tap quickly across the screen typing in his security code- 1998; the year he and Meryl were partnered. It's always been his password.

 

The display slides open to a photo of a huge seaside castle overlooking water so clean he almost wants to zoom in on the beach. Landon, who usually plays with his phone, probably changed it- which is only a little concerning since Charlie hasn't had any hot texts or pictures on it since he's been able to hold it. Though it's a little weird that his three-and-a-half yeard old son can read, because he's left a lot of shit around the house, and briefly, Charlie wonders if the words "maximum line of credit" make sense to a baby.

 

His finger hovers over 23 new text messages and 12 voicemails, and the red bubble over Instagram, which is still a thing, even though now- it's just pictures of Landon doing things and people asking him why he would break up with someone perfect like Tanith.

 

Sighing, he taps on voicemail, ready to hear his mother explode and order him into rehab or something else because his brother is being an asshole and the rest of his family is miraculously on Jason's side. Instead of Jacqui; begging him to come home- Charlie gets Erin Andrews, squealing: "Oh my God, Meryl! Merry Christmas, babe! I can't wait until you're back in New York! Okay, I'll talk to you later, bye!"

 

At which point, Charlie makes an Important Decision.

 

It's Christmas.

 

His gift, is the last five years of his partner's life.

 

He listens to Jeremy's halting message ("Hey...Meryl...um...I know we don't really talk anymore but...I just got approved for...the...me and my partner for...an adoption. Thought you wanted to know...because we used to talk about...that. Um, Merry Christmas. I hope you're having a good time. Bye.) and wonders, how far he will need to go back to piece together where the two of them shattered.

 

Eventually, the accent of the tinny voices echoing from the speakers of her phone changes to a gravelly Italian, and Charlie presses his ear to close to the screen.

 

He cracks Meryl open; thirty minutes of curse-laden screaming later.

 

* * *

 

 

"-after...after we lost that baby I just didn't want to think about having children anymore. Can't have kids- so what, right? So we stopped...and we just...we weren't trying but it happened, anyway.", Meryl whispers into his chest.

 

His bare shoulder is soaked with her tears, and Charlie wonders how someone so small can possibly cry that much. It's just like her, to be worried over this stupid bullshit; some never-kept secret that could never make him stop loving her.

 

But, for her sake- maybe, he tells himself, the important thing is to have the words come out of her own mouth.

 

"And we both thought...it'd be the same, you know? We were ready and I...was always on the phone with our doctor and we never- ...you know, I never thought the bab-well, I never thought she was real. But...nothing happened. Charlie, I woke up every morning for months just ready for it to really be over, but- ...we started painting a room and buying toys and I was looking at schools because you have to- there's a waitlist and you have to get them on to the waitlist years in advance-"

 

Charlie blinks rapidly, staring up at the ceiling, wondering how much more, exactly- that he can take.

 

"Meryl, stop. I...I know what happened, okay? I accidentally took your phone from my Mom's stupid basket at Christmas and heard...you know, those messages he decided to leave you. You um...you lost her, kind of far along, and you were in the hospital for a bit because of that, and then after that, you booked a flight. From the ward to the airport. That's understandable, um, to want to be around your family and maybe not...want that asshole back in your life. I've always fucking known, and I don't care. I just...can we stop this, right now? We don't need to hear any more."

 

He is half consoling, half begging for her to stop. It's too much- tonight, everything has been too much. He wants to sleep, to dry her tears and sleep and wake up again tomorrow making sure his girlfriend knows just how much he loves her in a million different ways.

 

She stares up at him, with bloodshot, watery, eyes.

 

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have listened to your messages. I know, it's bad but I...it was different then."

 

"I know. It's okay. That's okay."

 

"That's good. What about...we just talk some more tomorrow, and tonight, you just get some rest?", he murmurs, just for her to hear while he laces their fingers together. Meryl; never one to back down without a fight- furiously shakes her head.

 

"Charlie- wait. You need to know that- that it happened in December, okay?"

 

"Yeah. I know. I'm sorry. I was such a prick on Christmas Eve and I-"

 

No. He doesn't need her to fill in the blank for him.

 

"It's March now.", he says after a pause, his voice emptied of the air which rushes from his lungs as if something has barreled into his stomach.

 

* * *

 

 

"You need to get dressed.", he orders, as he wipes the tears from her cheeks without so much care as efficiency.

 

Meryl has always had it in her to be twisted, but never like this.

 

"Come here." His fingers are harsh against her skin, forcing buttons closed and pulling at straps and armholes; his lips pursed in a tight line. He takes her by the arm, downstairs, into the hallway, beside the front door- and stands there, on guard, while she laces together the leather loops on her heeled sandals.

 

"You had my phone, Christmas, right?", she says bitterly.

 

"I don't think that matters anymore.", Charlie shoots back.

 

"I talked to Tanith from yours. It was in Jacqui's basket, and it started ringing so I thought it was my call...but, I was...very forthcoming with what happened because I wanted to build that bridge again. I thought that was a sign, Tanith calling, like if I could fix that I could have-", Meryl pauses then, to wipe furiously at her cheeks.

 

"I wanted my life here back and I thought...I thought we could still be friends. You know what your asshole ex-wife did, Charlie? She laughed and said she was surprised how the tables turned. She was...drunk or something and she said "Well, I can't believe Meryl Davis stopped breezing through her entire life just in time to jump in bed with my ex." "

 

"Well, maybe Tanith was on to something. I just can't believe Meryl Davis would stoop so low that you fucked me on your dead kid's birthday."

 

"No, you fucked me, you prick. The two of you? That's who you deserve."

 

For added effect, she picks up her heels and slams the door shut in Charlie's face. The heated fluster of anger, which she feels as the lock clicks shut; dissipates in the cool night air.

 

She pulls out of the White's driveway, on to the highway, and back towards the suburbs- headlights dimmed. If no one sees her coming, and drifts a little bit into the wrong lane; it wouldn't be so much of a tragedy.

**Author's Note:**

> There could be other parts, or I could leave this as is. Leave comments or hit me up on Tumblr! :)


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